Sunday, 28 October 2018

I first came across multi-instrumentalist Trent Halliday in
his Three Days Dark alias and the album Somewhere
a Band Plays reviewed here. If you read you’ll see how much I enjoyed, so
it is obviously of interest to hear this mainly instrumental release, not least
when Halliday refers to his influences as Terry Riley and Steve Reich, the
former a firm favourite [well, many would state that] and hearing loops and
repetitions in this album’s opener Rainmaker
where the personal nuance is having these recurring from a played acoustic
guitar, a touch to the basics I also like. This is expanded on the second track
Standing on the Back of a Whale where
guitar again provides a foundation, and an ‘odd’ instrument [a mini digital accordion,
or similar?] that sets a very specific kind of minimalism, that is until the
track makes its inherent expansion into a choric fill. There are ‘Spanish’
influences here too, it seems to me, in the rhythms and ‘handclaps’, an eerie
fireworks background-of-sound – the danger perhaps in trying too hard to name
rather than just listen. The repetition in this is a hypnotic, climatic drive
to the end.

As well as individual artists who have inspired Halliday [and
a reference to Sufjan Stevens informs the work of Three Days Dark] he also
describes how ‘the album is minimalist inspired, cinematic,
orchestral-folk, with lots of acoustic instrumentation and some electronic
touches’. It is also playful, I think, in the way for example The Animal Orchestra is carnival-esque,
with Folklore Radical taking a
further tangent to a more percussive sound but within this a cowboy-esque sense
of pace – I can’t explain further though I see here the cinematic equivalent of
a horse racing across a prairie [?] though this then suddenly opens out into
Riley territory at its close.

Then Constellation
returns us to the acoustic guitar as the prime instrument, flamingo influences
performed in the clear expertise of Halliday’s playing – this too seguing to its
electronic phase where the guitar and the light percussive backdrop are lopped
onwards, and then returns to the acoustic core. I think this amalgam of live
playing and ‘electrifying’ works well, and is picked up in the following
guitar-driven title track [with sweet vocal chorus] Paper Lights.

There are further ranges and ranging, all
patterned to repeating as a key methodology. For those more inclined to the
wholly electronic, penultimate Shallows
provides this flavouring in the overall signature recipe.

Paper
Lights is a full musical meal to be savoured. You can get it here.

There is something inherently peaceful about the entire feel
of this album, a contentment in the excellence of its performance, from Crosby’s
pristine vocal to those from The Lighthouse Band who solo with him, accompany him
and harmonise with him in the essence of West Coast dream and lush.

Opener Glory
completely embraces and crystallises this – Michael League, Becca Stevens and
Michelle Willis the backing buttress to the symbiosis of this perfection. Vagrants of Venice follows with a more
complex structure and interesting soundings on the guitar work, timings and
tangents within the songs typically variable but retaining overall beauty.

1974 is a
completion of an old demo, the guitar and vocal semi-scat a familiar echo, then
the song enters its other familiar in a jazz inflected melody – we are right
back to those early days in the songcraft and performance and, I’ll say again,
purity of Crosby’s vocal perhaps prompted by the youth of those around him, a
happy osmosis. Your Own Ride is piano
led and has a choric surround wherein Crosby slows the pace to his solo
resonances as well as clarity. Quite beautiful. Buddha on a Hill is also jazz slanted, and this contains the album’s
title in its urging chorus, and if you do you will be moved on its musical wave.

I Am No Artist is
a turn back to the complex in its range, a focus on its poetry, and Becca
Stevens evoking Joni Mitchell in her emotive vocal – The Lighthouse Band such a
prominent influence on this and the album’s musical breadth. 1967 is another turn to a past demo, and
more wordless vocal mapping the guitar’s chord sequencing, past and present
merged seamlessly as the whole expands to a fulsome choral delivery. Stunning.

There is more, but I will close on closer Woodstock, Mitchell’s iconic
encapsulation of hope made hopeful at the time [1970] by Crosby, Stills, Nash
& Young, the stardust settled now to golden in years, reflection and mature
consideration – as if melody and the beauty of its recreation can still
deliver. Even if that journey is well-travelled in memory and nostalgia, this
is a peaceful reminder from Crosby and wonderful band, and when looking around
where we actually are, escaping for its three minutes and so is a joy.

Friday, 26 October 2018

Another lovely night of jazz at the Blue Vanguard, the Blue Vanguard House Trio in fine form as ever, and guest saxophonist Robert Fowler playing
a set of standards characterised by the sweet spot of recurring touch and feel,
reminding me of Benny Golson who is my touchstone for this kind of breathy and
delicate playing, full of fluid runs and an honouring of great melodies.
Performances that really appealed to me were of Johnny Green’s Body and Soul, the Coslow/Johnson My Old Flame, an interpretation of the Mandel/Williams
Close Enough for Love that began and
ended with just the pairing of Al Swainger on bass and Fowler on his sax that
was perfection, and the penultimate of the night – with a god bless for this – playing
the Herzog/Holiday God Bless the Child
which was simply beautiful.

This is a lightly fun Sunday listening morning, the new Herb
Albert a ‘modernising’ of the songs of my boyhood, the Tijuana Brass pretty
much a radio stalwart of my growing up in 60s America.

Hugely familiar songs like Spanish Flea, Work Song, Green Peppers, A Taste of Honey and Spanish Harlem are repackaged with funky
beats, some loops, vocal/voice inserts and other modestly applied effects,
never losing their innocent sweet melodies and all of the inherent hopefulness
of their time and that young boy’s assimilation of it all.

It isn’t all change and never radical. Just enough to occupy
before breakfast and reading the papers; memories of home and how some
alterations aren’t so bad in a world where you can get away with anything
really, not that Herb has taken any appalling liberties with this music: A Taste of Honey playing as I write
that, sweeping strings wafting across a slowed but pronounced beat, echo on the
horn, some buzzing sounds, some staccato ‘heys’, and still as if it was
nearly yesterday.

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This blog is essentially for music reviews, including live gigs. Frequently heavy on 60s/70s nostalgia, the time of my musical growing-up, there is also an eclectic and contemporary range. In addition I fuel a commitment to posting themed album covers for the simple challenge and fun of it - as I've started, I'll keep going. Enjoy.